Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Today, a person at work made a comment about how someone we mutually dislike is annoying because he is an only child, and only-children are always flailing about for reassurance to match that which they assumedly received while basking in their singleness during childhood.

Dude: only child here to confirm that is bullshit.

1. He is annoying because he's stupid, and
2. I think only-childism actually breeds a problematic lack of reverence for belonging, and for the approval one receives from others in their pack. All of the only-children that I have known have followed a pattern of deliberate self-isolation, neither requiring nor (oftentimes) accepting praise. They're fuckin' weirdos, man. Missed out on some important social times in the formative years!

My sample size is pretty large. Growing up, my close friends always seemed to be only-children. I am thinking of three different longterm BFFs 1993-present. Secondly, I have dated other only-children, sometimes at length. I know what I'm talking about. These people don't want a high five. I also begin to wonder if only children link up together subconsciously. At one time, in my early 20s, 6 out of 8 of my main everyday crew were only children. Were 75% of YOUR friends only children? I think not.

I think it is the more thoroughly socialized who require consistent back patting. These are the same people who tear up whenever they are alone, because they don't know what to do in the absence of chatter and touching, like little tree monkeys taken away from their communities, for whom context only exists in the group.

I mean, no judgment. It took me decades to turn my antisocial behaviors around into something that closely resembles normalcy, and being an only child definitely creates a deficit when it comes to understanding other people.

I am not big on jesusy forgiveness of people who have committed significant transgressions, and I think it's because I don't have a community-oriented brain. I have no problem ejecting people from my life once I've come to the objective conclusion that there's no value in it for us, no matter how close we were once. Hey, I'm not a monster. If we were close friends, then it may take me a few years (or an unforgivable event) to do it, but I will eventually do it, and it won't be difficult. And, if I'm honest, I've only waited to end those friendships because I didn't want to be perceived as cold, enhancing the deluded narrative that the idiot I'm getting rid of will doubtlessly create about the situation.

And what's with people randomly citing only children in their lists of demonstrably fucked up people? RUDE.